Newcastle City Council needed to evaluate a range of technologies that could improve parking services. 

Key to this analysis was determining the deployment options for the 6,000 pay and display bays managed by the Council in 76 discrete locations across the City. 

This required detailed information to be sourced from a disparate static documentation and databases, much of which were paper-based.

As well as presenting challenges for data analysis, maintaining the records in this format required significant effort.

Solving the problem

Urban Foresight worked with the council’s Parking Service to develop a digitalise its various databases into a single source of intelligence. This captured the key attributes of each parking location.  This was then used to support detailed financial modelling of options for deployment of different combinations of technologies.

During this process, Urban Foresight identified that a visual presentation of the data would support more effective decision-making and further analysis. This was achieved by creating a new geospatial data layer, defining the exact position of each parking location in the city. 

This simple change meant the dataset could be modelled, displayed, and published to meet the needs of different audiences.

Key outcomes

Urban Foresight developed an interactive digital parking map and provide guidance to the Council’s parking team to ensure it could be independently updated and maintained. 

To enable the Council to maintain and further develop this tool, it was built within Microsoft’s Power BI business analytics platform.

To date, the parking service has identified several discrete and valuable business applications for the visual representation of the data. This includes:

• supporting decision making on future parking capacity, charges, and the deployment of cashless solutions;
• optimising the deployment of Civil Enforcement Officers; and
• advising motorists on the locations best suited to their individual requirements.

 A beta version of the map is now published on the Council website.

For the first time, residents and visitors to Newcastle now have an interactive digital map of all council operated parking spaces.

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